By "I am unsure about the accumulation of negatives", I meant me^pote oude in that quotation.If oude is a compound negative, then this oude is just confirming the negation.If oude is treated not as a compound negative but as a simple negative, then this me^pote oude is an affirmative.

If oude is a compound negative, then this oude is just confirming the negation.If oude is treated not as a compound negative but as a simple negative, then this me^pote oude is an affirmative.

Junya,

Smyth's treatment of negative accumulation (#2760-#2762) is concise and more lucid than Guy Cooper (vol. 2, 67.11.1-14) and they don't agree at all points. According to Copper's "general rule" for "double negatives" (which make an affirmation) "... this occurs with complete clarity only when a compound negative of substantive meaning is followed by a simple (uncompounded) negative." (v. 2, #67.11.2 p1121) Cooper then goes on to qualify this by noting that some simple negatives actually function like compounds of substantive meaning, for example OUC ESTIN hOSTIS which is equivalent to OUDEIS ESTI. Cooper has numerous subtle qualifications (goes on for pages and pages).

So it would appear that the text you quote doesn't qualify for "double negative" status. MHPOTE and OUDE are both compounds and MHPOTE is not a substantive.

Mr. Bartholomew, thank you.The response got late, I'm sorry, but I lost my precious hat which I have used for 10 years. I was busy about that.

-------------------------

Though I don't tell you whence the quoted sentence was (for, it might be a bother for you to read the full context),I saw in the dictionary me^pote has a meaning as a conjunction, lest ever, then I wondered how this kind of accumulation of negatives (me^pote oude as lest...not) should work. (I think, after the words meaning lest, oude would be just pleonastic.)How do you think about that ?Do you need the context ?

Junya wrote:I saw in the dictionary me^pote has a meaning as a conjunction, lest ever, then I wondered how this kind of accumulation of negatives (me^pote oude as lest...not) should work. (I think, after the words meaning lest, oude would be just pleonastic.)How do you think about that ?

Junya,

This is not an easy task. μήποτε οὐδὲ appears to be an idiom of later greek. μήποτε alone or followed by other negative particles, for example μήποτε οὐ μὴ can be understood as suggesting contingency "perhaps" which we can see in Matthew 25:9

The former parables He spoke to the multitudes; but this and the two which follow it, which are not parables but similitudes in relation to the kingdom of heaven, He seems to have spoken to the disciples when in the house. In regard to this and the next two, let him who gives heed to reading 1 Timothy 4:13 inquire whether they are parables at all. In the case of the latter the Scripture does not hesitate to attach in each case the name of parable; but in the present case it has not done so;

Clearly we are not dealing with "double negatives" here and it appears to be something more subtle than empathic negation. Situating your text in the history of the language is a project somewhat beyond my scope. Thank you for raising an interesting question.

I'm sorry for giving you such a bother.But you seem to have maden it a profit to your study.Thank you.

The me^pote oude in your quotation from Origen means whether ?Anyway, the definitions LSJ gives to me^pote are too concise.I check it up in Smyth tonight, and then I may give you another question if anything doesn't become clearer by Smyth.

Junya wrote:The me^pote oude in your quotation from Origen means whether ?Anyway, the definitions LSJ gives to me^pote are too concise.I check it up in Smyth tonight, and then I may give you another question if anything doesn't become clearer by Smyth.

Junya,

For Origen, I looked at Lampe (Patristic Greek Lexicon) under μήποτε def. 2.a conjunction "whether" he cites Origen and others.

having looked over all the suspectable articles (of me^ and me^ ou) in Smyth, this me^pote seems now to me to be "perhaps", as you first proposed.

By the way, I'm unsure about the English in this sample sentence in Smyth. (The section number I don't give, because my Smyth seems to be a diffferent version than yours.)

hora^te me^ ouk emoi prose^kei logon dounai

have a care lest it does not beseem me to give an account

Is this not just an emphasis and capable of omitting ?I have posted this question to a couple of Q&A sites, but even the English experts were unsure.

Junya,

You appear to be quoting from an early version of Smyth (1916?) whereas I am using the Harvard revised version of the 1920 ed, c. 1956. The Perseus digitized Smyth has cross references to the 1920 edition. Thats how I found your citation which is #2233 in 1920/1956 Smyth.

The english rendering is very archaic.

have a care lest it does not beseem me to give an account

Yes "not" is redundant but perhaps included to mirror the double negative μὴ οὐκ. This english is not idiomatic even for hundreds of years ago.

A rough contemporary version might be:

ὁρᾶτε μὴ οὐκ ἐμοὶ . . . προσήκει λόγον δοῦναι And. 1.103

See to it that I don't get stuck with giving an account.

Here μὴ οὐκ ἐμοὶ is rendered by "that I don't", someone else could give a better rendering. μὴ οὐκ introduces a subordinate clause "I get stuck with giving an account." There is no need to use a double negative in English, it would just confuse matters.

How the negative expression μὴ οὐ is understood in a particular citation is entirely dependent on the surrounding text. There is no general answer to the question what does μὴ οὐ mean or how is μὴ οὐ used.

I rewrote this post several times because I am struggling with the metalanguage used in the standard school grammars. I don't use traditional metalanguage in my own work, but to talk in the public arena one is compelled to adopt a lingo which has a history of general use in the field of Classical Languages. I am trying to just avoid using technical terms that would raise all kinds of endless discussion and confusion.

I'm sorry. I have made you labor. But your explanation is very clear and I now understand the matter.

The reason the experts of English in the Q&A sites weren't sure about this lest...not construction might be that this construction was put into English from Greek, and used only in the texts of Greek-influenced literature, like translations from Greek, like bible.

Junya wrote:I'm sorry. I have made you labor. But your explanation is very clear and I now understand the matter.

The reason the experts of English in the Q&A sites weren't sure about this lest...not construction might be that this construction was put into English from Greek, and used only in the texts of Greek-influenced literature, like translations from Greek, like bible.

Junya,

Please don't be sorry, I am glad for the opportunity to discuss Greek with people who are interested. My comments about metalanguage come from experiences on other ancient language forums where people using different frameworks talk past each other.

I agree that "... lest it does not beseem me to give an account" looks like translation English. Don't recall every seeing anything that awkward in anything except a interlinear Bible.

Yes "not" is redundant but perhaps included to mirror the double negative μὴ οὐκ. This english is not idiomatic even for hundreds of years ago.

A rough contemporary version might be:

ὁρᾶτε μὴ οὐκ ἐμοὶ . . . προσήκει λόγον δοῦναι And. 1.103

See to it that I don't get stuck with giving an account.

Wait, why is 'not' in Smyth rendering is redundant? Or in yours?

If you want someone to make sure you don't get stuck with doing something you're not too keen ondoing, wouldn't removing 'don't' relay a contrary message?

Smyth in these sections emphasized that μὴ is untranslatable but merely introduces the objectclause of apprehension/caution, and the verb inside that clause is negated by οὐ. (§2221a.)If it's relating to the future, we use subj., and opt. (or subj. for vividness) after secondary tenses. If it's relating to the present or past, fear/caution that something actually is or isn't (was or wasn't), we use indicative.

ὁρᾶτε here is strictly a verb of effort and would normally admits to such construction, that is,it would take fut. ind. with ὅωπς (rarely fut. opt. after secondary tenses). The negative is μὴ.But in negative clauses only, it sometimes takes by analogy the construction of verbs of fear. (§2210b.)

I just don't understand why μὴ οὐκ ἐμοὶ . . . προσήκει λόγον δοῦναι is considered a present caution.It clearly looks to the future, and if so, and the subj. is too conditional, why didn't he use fut. ind.?

The Dictionary.com site as well as Thefreedictionary.com, wrote that "after verbs or phrases expressingfear, worry, anxiety, etc" lest means "for fear that; in case: he was alarmed lest she should findout."

Yes "not" is redundant but perhaps included to mirror the double negative μὴ οὐκ. This english is not idiomatic even for hundreds of years ago.

A rough contemporary version might be:

ὁρᾶτε μὴ οὐκ ἐμοὶ . . . προσήκει λόγον δοῦναι And. 1.103

See to it that I don't get stuck with giving an account.

Wait, why is 'not' in Smyth rendering is redundant? Or in yours?

Nate,

I not sure how to parse Smyth's sentence. The way I was reading it "lest" renderers "not" redundant. "lest it does not beseem me" sounds like an exercise in from early-Chomsky.

Smyth in these sections emphasized that μὴ is untranslatable but merely introduces the objectclause of apprehension/caution, and the verb inside that clause is negated by οὐ. (§2221a.)

OK, after looked a #2221 I see what Smyth is doing, I was miss reading the Greek μὴ οὐκ in this passage. The object to be feared is that some scenario might NOT take place. I had it reversed. Never the less, that isn't a good way to say in English.

I see now that ὁράω with μὴ is an idiom for apprehension, found it in LSJ and Grimm-Thayer under ὁράω, and that is the scenario that Smyth addresses in #2233. I think that μὴ οὐ in other contexts functions as a single constituent, remember Cooper talking about it, how in some places the μὴ has an independent function and other places μὴ οὐ behave like a single word.

The truth is, gentlemen, that although the prosecution may have availed themselves of a perfectly valid law in lodging their information against me, they based their charge upon that old decree which is concerned with an entirely different matter. So if you condemn me, beware: you will find that a host of others ought to be answering for their past conduct with far more reason than I. First there are the men who fought you, with whom you swore oaths of reconciliation: then there are the exiles whom you restored: and finally there are the citizens whose rights you gave back to them. For their sakes you removed stones of record, annulled laws, and cancelled decrees; and it is because they trust you that they are still in Athens, gentlemen.

Really helps to see some context. Smyth's citation omits εἰ οὖν ἐμοῦ καταψηφιεῖσθε "So if you condemn me" which is essential for understanding what follows. ὁρᾶτε μὴ ... introduces a warning (imperative) "beware that the greatest obligation to given an account does not fall on me (τῶν πολιτῶν ...τῶν γεγενημένων ?), but [it falls] more so on many others ..."

Yes, this is really rough but an attempt to keep the clause order closer to the original. I am not sure where to attach τῶν πολιτῶν. It might be joined with the participle τῶν γεγενημένων.

C. S. Bartholomew wrote:Really helps to see some context. Smyth's citation omits εἰ οὖν ἐμοῦ καταψηφιεῖσθε "So if you condemn me" which is essential for understanding what follows. ὁρᾶτε μὴ ... introduces a warning (imperative) "beware that the greatest obligation to given an account does not fall on me (τῶν πολιτῶν ...τῶν γεγενημένων ?), but [it falls] more so on many others ..."

Yes, this is really rough but an attempt to keep the clause order closer to the original. I am not sure where to attach τῶν πολιτῶν. It might be joined with the participle τῶν γεγενημένων.

I think it's a genitive partitive to ἐμοί, that I, most of all citizens, and the participle with the articlemodifies them, according to the translation supplied above, by contrasting their (graver, at least from the orator's view) past actions (almost like a neuter, as if it said "the things which have occurred duringtheir time") with his misdemeanor (what was the charge?).

This commentary restores the reading of Stephens, that it should be the subj. προσήκῃ, and he referenced Goodwin's Moods and Tenses, p.83, but I can't find anything on that pageremotely related to this type of sentence. Maybe he had a different edition.

P.S., I've been reading this book by Gavin Hamilton (1866) concerning what he believes to bethe true theory as to the meaning of μή. He does not hesitates to send his prickly thorns on the Germans philologists of the time and his fellow British scholars who have willingly followed them,including Liddell-Scott in their Lexicon, and Thomas Arnold's Greek Prose Composition, to name a few.

My favorite quote so far:

It is neither necessary nor desirable to say more. After all, the best way to refute sucharguments is to state them; then they refute themselves.

C. S. Bartholomew wrote: ... I am not sure where to attach τῶν πολιτῶν. It might be joined with the participle τῶν γεγενημένων.

I think it's a genitive partitive to ἐμοί, that I, most of all citizens, and the participle with the article modifies them, according to the translation supplied above, by contrasting their (graver, at least from the orator's view) past actions (almost like a neuter, as if it said "the things which have occurred during their time") with his misdemeanor (what was the charge?).

This translation?

So if you condemn me, beware: you will find that a host of others ought to be answering for their past conduct with far more reason than I.

So if you condemn me, beware: you will find that a host of others ought to be answering for their pastconduct with far more reason than I.

Here, the translator just turned the phrase to suit his style. οὐκ ἐμοὶ τῶν πολιτῶν προσήκει,ἀλλὰ πολλοῖς ἑτέροις μᾶλλον: ἐμοὶ is the part and τῶν πολιτῶν is the group.

According to the translation from Perseus, I see now τῶν γεγενημένων is a neuter going with λόγον δοῦναι, to give account for x, and not the way I initially presented it, as modifying thegen. part. τῶν πολιτῶν.

It also seems that οὐκ doesn't negate the verb, but the object of it, contrasting himself with the other citizens, whose past actions, in his opinion, require scrutiny far more than his own.

Still, another commentary by E.C. Merchant criticizes the reading of subj. here instead of the indicative referencing Appendix A of Shilleto's edition of Demosthenes' De falsa legatione, and Kuhner's Greek Grammar (though his version is different than the one on archive.org so I can't link) where he says the indicative with μή and μὴ οὐ is used for vividness after verbs of apprehension.

So this me^ ouk has turned out to be not me^ ou, but the ouk is a part of the construction ou..., alla... separately from me^.Then there is no problem for me in this sentence.But I wonder if the sentence and that English translation in Smyth were right for that section.

NateD26 wrote:According to the translation from Perseus, I see now τῶν γεγενημένων is a neuter going with λόγον δοῦναι, to give account for x, and not the way I initially presented it, as modifying thegen. part. τῶν πολιτῶν.

Nate,

Looking at this again this morning, I agree that τῶν γεγενημένων limits λόγον, a vague reference to whatever actions were taken by πολλοῖς ἑτέροις which would bring them under condemnation. The translation is more concrete than the original. It mines out implicit meaning and makes it explicit which is appropriate for readers not familiar with the original (ancient) scenario.

On question of reading προσήκει, it is perhaps preferable to retain the difficult reading.

Junya wrote:So this me^ ouk has turned out to be not me^ ou, but the ouk is a part of the construction ou..., alla... separately from me^.Then there is no problem for me in this sentence.But I wonder if the sentence and that English translation in Smyth were right for that section.

Junya,

The right section in Smyth? Not sure what you are asking. In Smyth it is under Object Clauses with Verbs of Fear. If we are willing to take ὁρᾶτε μὴ as an idiom of fear then it is where it belongs. Again, I'm up in air about the intend of your question.

Junya wrote:So this me^ ouk has turned out to be not me^ ou, but the ouk is a part of the construction ou..., alla... separately from me^.Then there is no problem for me in this sentence.But I wonder if the sentence and that English translation in Smyth were right for that section.

Junya,

The right section in Smyth? Not sure what you are asking. In Smyth it is under Object Clauses with Verbs of Fear. If we are willing to take ὁρᾶτε μὴ as an idiom of fear then it is where it belongs.

The right section in Smyth? Not sure what you are asking. In Smyth it is under Object Clauses with Verbs of Fear. If we are willing to take ὁρᾶτε μὴ as an idiom of fear then it is where it belongs.

CSB

Yes, what I said was vague. I mean... the section goes like this.

1368 (the section number in my version)Fear relating to the present or past is expressed by me^ with the indicative (negative me^ ou)

Though now I am cleared, I was unclear about the expression "negative me^ ou" here.Now I understand this means with the negatived verb of fear, like ouk horao^. The subordinate clause takes me^ ou then. But before, I thought that sentence hora^te me^ ouk emoi prose^kei logon dounai was the example of this "negative me^ ou".Wouldn't there be an unclearness in the expression "negative me^ ou" for others, too ?

Junya wrote:Though now I am cleared, I was unclear about the expression "negative me^ ou" here.Now I understand this means with the negatived verb of fear, like ouk horao^. The subordinate clause takes me^ ou then.But before, I thought that sentence hora^te me^ ouk emoi prose^kei logon dounai was the example of this "negative me^ ou".Wouldn't there be an unclearness in the expression "negative me^ ou" for others, too ?

What Smyth means, Junya, is that when the verb inside a clause of fear/apprehension is negated,it is with an οὐ, while μή merely introduces the apprehension clause, untranslatable in English.

You seem to be confusing between verbs of fear and semantically negative verbs.

when the verb inside a clause of fear/apprehension is negated,it is with an οὐ, while μή merely introduces the apprehension clause, untranslatable in English.

Though this was said from the first time you posted in this sled, somehow it is difficult for me to understand.I understood what you were saying, but that didn't lead me to the understanding of...

hora^te me^ ouk emoi prose^kei logon dounaihave a care lest it does not beseem me to give an account

...to the understanding of that English translation, and the English construction lest ... not. (Now the problem about this has been cleared, as you see my post above. I wrote :So this me^ ouk has turned out to be not me^ ou, but the ouk is a part of the construction ou..., alla... separately from me^.Having known it like that, I can understand that sentence well, without the help, or obstacle, of that English translation.)

Smyth says :

1368 (the section number in my version)Fear relating to the present or past is expressed by me^ with the indicative (negative me^ ou)

Nate wrote :

What Smyth means, Junya, is that when the verb inside a clause of fear/apprehension is negated,it is with an οὐ, while μή merely introduces the apprehension clause, untranslatable in English.

But in this sample sentence (quoted above), ouk negates not the verb prose^kei, but the noun emoi, as the context shown in Perseus is showing.So even now I'm somewhat unclear about the saying negative me^ ou by Smyth.